Book description
Against Nature (A Rebours)By Joris-Karl Huysmans, John Howard (Translated by)
Why read it?
2 authors picked Against Nature (A Rebours) as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I like to recommend difficult books—everyone needs a challenge once in a while and the nihilist Huysmans kind of throws down a literary gauntlet here in that he’s sort of daring you to go with him to the abysses of the modern soul.
This book is indeed way more psychedelic than any 60’s Beat guy or girl ever penned or dreamed.
From John's list on reads if your rock ‘n’ roll party days are over.
This is my recommended therapy against the expected and mundane, a complete inversion of values from late nineteenth-century France. Against Nature (from the French A Rebours) is a refreshingly plotless decadent novel about an aristocratic aesthete, Jean Des Esseintes, who, having grown disgusted with society, retreats into his house to contemplate higher things. These include a tortoise which he plates in gold and encrusts with jewels to highlight the colours on a Persian rug. This book made me want to give up wearing socks.
From D.B.C.'s list on misfits and wretched excess.
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